Torch Talk
Torch Talk is the podcast for bold local leaders.
Each week, we sit down with entrepreneurs, experts, and change makers to talk strategy, leadership, marketing, and what it really takes to grow a business today. Honest insights. No fluff. Real stories.
Torch Talk
Leaders Worth Following
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In this episode of Torch Talk, Lindsey Chupp sits down with Suzi Lantz, leadership development consultant and founder of Personal Peak Consulting, for a conversation about leadership growth, team dynamics, and what it takes to build healthy organizational cultures.
Drawing from her experience coaching executives and leadership teams, Suzi shares why many leaders get stuck, how self-awareness shapes influence, and why leadership development is about more than just solving problems. The conversation explores the importance of reflection, delegation, change management, and creating environments where people can grow and thrive.
Suzi also unpacks the role of executive coaching, how leaders can better understand themselves and their teams, and why curiosity may be one of the most important leadership skills of all.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
• Why leadership growth starts with self-awareness
• How reflection helps leaders make better decisions
• The challenge of leading through constant change
• Why delegation is critical for sustainable growth
• How to create psychologically safe team cultures
• The role coaching plays in unlocking potential
• Why curiosity is a powerful leadership tool
• How strong leaders develop future leaders
This episode offers a practical look at leadership development, especially for business owners, managers, and executives who want to grow their influence, strengthen their teams, and lead with greater intention.
When you allow ownership of an individual to champion their own growth, to tell you what they'd like to learn, where they'd like to be in a year from now, it often increases this momentum. And when a whole team of people is doing it together and they help each other grow, there's your capacity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So people are much more engaged when they're a part of the building process. Absolutely. A part of the ideas. Yeah, if I say I'm gonna want to do something, then I probably want to do it more than if you tell me to do it. Welcome back to Torch Talk, the show where we spotlight bold leaders, growing businesses and communities with grit and purpose. Today's guest is Susie Lance, leadership development consultant and founder of Personal Peak Consulting. In this Torch Talk episode, we'll explore her approach to executive coaching and take a deeper dive into what it takes to build intentional leaders, strengthen team dynamics, and create cultures where people and organizations truly thrive. Welcome to the show, Susie. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to have you on. It's great to be here. I always love to hear you speak. I feel like you deliver such valuable content and always make me think, and I appreciate speakers like that.
SPEAKER_02So I appreciate that. I try to make it as practical as possible whenever I get the opportunity to speak, because that's always what I'm looking for in the audience.
SPEAKER_00You want to have something to take home.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. How does this make me better? What little nugget can I take away and actually put into practice?
SPEAKER_00So well, tell our audience a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you ended up in the seat that you're in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So as you mentioned in the introduction, thank you for that. Um, you know, I do a lot of executive coaching and organizational leadership culture. Uh I I guess at this point I would call it architecture. Um, I work with consultants to really help organizations develop the healthy leadership cultures that will sustain, um, not just inspire, but actually keep them in the day-to-day. So I have a team of coaches and consultants that I work with that, depending on the industry, uh, each of them have their own specialties. And we really work in the day-to-day to help people be leaders worth following, and then create the cultures of leadership within organizations that sustain an individual's ability to actually be a leader worth following in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So, what does a coaching um program with you look like? Like, do you have a system that you follow? Or how do you bring somebody says, well, I I a lot of business owners know that they need coaching or support or something, but they don't know where to start or kind of like where do they go?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So, you know, when it comes to executive coaching, there's often a barrier and just people think that only those who are failing need a coach. But if you transfer that to the world of athletics, who do you actually get a private coach for? Not the kid who stinks on the team, the one who's showing promise that actually has the ability to excel. And so you invest in that individual's talent so that they can actually reach their potential. And it's something that I really uh I love to just do away with that barrier because it exists and often it's just misperception. But when a person wants coaching, you know, it's really critical to recognize that they have different goals. And a good coach will assess what is it that you want to overcome? What is the potential that you're looking to recognize? What's the problem that you can't overcome by yourself? Um, and so I have a lot of tools, but I don't have a set framework because there's really no one size fits all. When it comes to leadership, uh, there are so many factors that go into an individual's growth and development that I really like to take the time first off to get to know the individual. Who are they right now? Uh so I often start with a leader intensive that takes that individual back through the journey of their life and how they evolved to where they are. It seems like therapy and who they are now. Well, it can't seem like that. And yet, what I'm amazed at is a lot of leaders that you find in higher-level leadership, they are so future focused. We hire them, we put them in those roles because they're visionaries. They see what isn't yet recognized, and then they build the strategy to get there. Those leaders who have such gifts of future focus and present strategy often never look back to actually recap the lessons that have actually baked into them to make them who they are today. And some of the tendencies that maybe undermine their influence in their leadership or keep them stuck, the secrets to actually moving beyond those lie in some of the leadership lessons they learned early on in their life. And so it may be, it might seem a little bit like therapy, but it really is an important part of coaching. I always say the difference between a therapist and a coach, if you don't have words yet for the strong emotions that a certain person or experience or event, you need a therapist. Because you need a safe place to process that, the emotions, the experience, and then find the words to articulate it. When you have words to explain, hey, this is a season I went through that was really hard for me, and here's the residue it left, then you can hire a coach to move you beyond it. Until you have those words, I find that my job as a coach is almost impossible. So I've got a great, you know, list of wonderful therapists and counselors, and that is not what you want to do. That if something's way too emotional for a client, I'm like, let's mark this.
SPEAKER_00Um and also I was gonna say, I know thinking back, I've only fierce will be five this year, but I'm like, oh my goodness, the emotional roller coaster that it's been of just the highs and the lows. But what I find with myself is like if you're a visionary, you tend to be that forward-facing, which means you're always looking at the horizon, which means you're never going to arrive. Yeah, and it never feels good enough. And you're not, and if you don't do that look backwards, not only what lessons did I learn, but also, oh my goodness, what did we actually achieve and what are the good things that happened here?
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I mean, resilience comes not just from going through hard times, but when we actually go through the hard times, we make it through, and then we stop and reflect and say, Hey, that was really hard. That was an emotional roller coaster. But here's what I learned, and here's who I became. Because what happens then the next time we face the tough, we have those words to draw on. We say, Hey, this is not great. It's another roller coaster, but I've survived. And actually, I became stronger the last time. So what's the worst that could happen? And so it really is reflection is such an important tool for a leader to actually practice because, like you said, you're somebody, and I tend to be that way too. Future focus. Let's, you know, who cares about the past, let's move forward. But it actually gives us so much more security, more strength, more confidence when we remember what we've been through and the things that we've taken with us to face the future with. And so it's something I often uh make sure is part of our starting process because it also allows me to get to know that client. And then as they articulate their goals, you know, here's where I'm stuck or here's where I'd like to be, I make sure they have a realistic vision for their future. And then we look at all the barriers going forward, and you know, and so then I can draw from different tools or frameworks that are actually going to fit uh that particulars or particular leader's journey. And so there's not a quite a one size fits all. Um I find depending on the person, uh the problems they're facing, the industry they're in, there's just different tools that are going to help them overcome. And I try to match that with the leader.
SPEAKER_00Is there a specific area of the business that you specialize in, or are you really able to kind of meet them? So if it's an operational problem, uh what if it's a financial problem or a sales problem? Or, you know, there's a lot of different problems that a business owner might be facing. So are you able to help them overcome?
SPEAKER_02So I tend, you know, in in any business, you're gonna have people problems and process problems. I tend to specialize in the people problems. However, often in coaching, we identify the system issue that's a lack of a good process that the individuals are dealing with, and so it is creating people tension. Um, I tend to look at things in a very systems-driven way. Um, what is the system at, you know, at work? Where is the system broken? Uh, but then I do not pretend to have a financial background and so you're bringing the right person in on it. You need uh, yeah, great financial analysts. I am not your person, but I do have, again, great references. I try to make sure that there are wonderful people that have the subject matter expertise that a client would need, and I try to steer them in that direction. I never pretend to know more than I I uh do know. Uh so people do tend to be my focus, particularly leadership and thinking through you know the organization as a system, but that's uh that's where I tend to focus.
SPEAKER_00So you're working with people who feel stuck, feel like they have a problem. What are some of the most common stuck areas or problems that you see consistently over all of the people that you've coached?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I think, and I'm gonna say, you know, post-COVID things shifted and that's where we are today. Um, one of the things that often bogs down leaders uh that I'm I'm coaching currently is just the constant change that's happening and their ability or inability to lead and manage change effectively. It is a constant part of our world now, and so there is a skill to it. You know, change management isn't just something you wake up knowing how to do, and yet it's been a requirement for our leaders ever since the pandemic. The pandemic gave us a great opportunity to say, how could we do things differently? But then that never really stopped. And so I think that particularly I tend to find myself in organizations that are growing. That's usually, you know, if if an organization is just happy with status quo and where they are, they don't often bring in coaches to level up their performers. So I find myself in companies that are poised to scale or who have already experienced a lot of growth or want to. And those are, you know, the organizations that are facing often a lot of change. And it's it's good change. Growth creates change. Uh, but to lead that effectively, you really do need to have some skills. And I think that's often where leaders get stuck, and sometimes they get tired because people aren't just embracing the new idea, the new software, the new fill-in-the-blanks. And it can be very frustrating, particularly for a future forward visionary leader, to watch the slow process of integrating change. Um, and so that is one area that I find that's that's somewhat common. Um, another is often, as we mentioned, you know, just the time to reflect, to slow down and work on the business as opposed to in it. I find that it is something that I I have to almost check in on and have some accountability for. Hey, where did you have space in your week to just stop and reflect and ask yourself, what's working? I mean, that sounds like a dream. What's broken? You know, what's missing here? What's confusing to my people? And so that uh discipline to create that margin for reflection, what it does for an organization and a business and the people within it, there's no comparison. It's like working smarter, not harder, and yet it always shocks me how few lead how few leaders actually have designated time in their schedule for reflection, for strategy, for actual just thoughtfulness. And that largely is what they're being asked to do and to bring to their people. Um and so it's it's often a starting place, you know, where I always say if you want to convince me that you care about something, show me your calendar and your bank statement.
SPEAKER_00And I'll show you what you care about. Well, do you say most leaders think that they just don't have time to pause and reflect? And so you kind of just work with them through Yes. What's the barrier to that?
SPEAKER_02And for some, it's just a lack of delegation. They haven't figured out who can I offload some of these lower level tasks to because it's just easier. And then often it's not because they want to be these micromanager power hungry, they're just like, oh well, I can do that. I don't need to burden.
SPEAKER_00It does feel easier. I this is gonna take me two seconds.
SPEAKER_02It's gonna take me two seconds if I have to teach this person and then trust that they've learned it, it might take an hour. But taking a week to upskill someone that you can offload, you know, something that takes maybe an hour of every single day of your life, you just save yourself five hours. If you keep doing that, you can save more and more. And I always uh help leaders articulate and kind of filter their work through what's important and what's urgent, the Eisenhower matrix. It's an old tool. And so when they get to a place where they recognize, oh wow, my day is filled with things that only I can do. And I have delegated as much as I can to the rest of my team. I make sure, you know, there's a training that people are always leveling up so that the leader can continue to just do the things that they they alone in their organization are skilled, credentialed, or actually have the wisdom to contribute to. And that's not easy. Sounds simple, but it is tough.
SPEAKER_00There are some matrix matrices out there also for identifying that, which is what what am I uniquely able or identified? Yeah. What should I be doing actually? What am I the most skilled at doing? And I know a lot of people don't actually spend the time to stop and say, what am I actually the best at? And I should be spending most of my time doing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. It's what's your unique ability. There's a great book out there that is uh uh 2x or 10x is easier than 2x. I love that whole book series. Yes, yes. And I always mix up the numbers. Um, but it's it the concept is is right on. It's like when you figure out what your unique ability is, the thing that you alone can bring to your organization, but then you champion everyone else's unique ability and people can play to their strengths and then identify, hey, this this is where I'm not strong and I want to grow. You really uh unleash the potential within a team or an organization. And yet often, you know, we just don't take the time to look in the mirror. We don't take the time to reflect and and think through what tasks energize me. Because the fastest way to figure out a unique ability is really assessing your energy. Now, that's given if you've gotten eight hours of sleep a night and you're, you know, you're doing everything physically okay. When you leave work and you feel energized, like I can't wait to get home, maybe I'll go for a walk or do things with the kids. What were what were you doing all day? Or how did you spend the bulk of that day that has allowed you to sustain energy? On the days where you feel like, I am just barely hanging on, I wish I could call an Uber to drive me home because I'm exhausted. Also ask yourself, what was it that I did all day? And then sometimes those clues allow you to orchestrate your days, to schedule them in a way that you can sustain your energy by doing more of what comes natural and what gives you energy and delegating the things that tend to, you know, to really draw.
SPEAKER_00You really are struggling, you you go through the process, you identify that, but you don't really have the team, maybe you're not scaled enough to delegate, you don't have those things in place. Right. Um, are there any best practices around, okay, well, you should take all the things that drain you and do it in one day? Or do you know what I'm saying? How do you survive through that in between scaling tests?
SPEAKER_02So you have to pace yourself, but but there are practices of just recognizing. I tend to do great work in the morning and about 2 p.m. I start leveling off. So I will upscale like some of the things that are draining to me and difficult, I'll make sure one or two of them I just hit right away. I tackle it while I have a lot of energy and brain power. I don't leave those to the afternoon. Although my natural tendency is to want to wait till the very last minute to do the things I don't enjoy and that are difficult for me. And so some of that restructuring is great. One thing though, you know, as leaders, when they figure out, hey, I don't have the team who can just take this from me. It's a really important question to ask why? Why don't I have the team that I feel confident in delegating? Um often there's capacity, hidden capacity within team and team members that we're unaware of. And I find that just an organic inventory of asking people, you know, on a scale of one to ten, like how much more capacity do you have to do new things, to learn new things, to take on more? And getting people's, you know, unofficial gauge is really critical for a leader. Because if you have somebody who's kind of, you know, not challenged and they don't feel like they have enough meaningful work, there's your goal because they're gonna learn, they're gonna grow, they're gonna create some capacity that you may not recognize is sitting right in front of you. Because it's not obvious. Most people don't walk around saying, Hey, I need more to do. Yeah. But if you give them the opportunity to share, here's where I'm sitting, here's what I'd like to learn or take on, often you find that there's some capacity within a team where you can get to a better, um, more regular schedule that's going to be invigorating to the leader faster than you think.
SPEAKER_00Do you have any examples of where you've gone in, you've worked with somebody and you've helped them kind of work through this problem and identify a solution and work through that?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So I work uh with a wonderful electrical contractor with the data centers, and they have capacity constraints all of the time because they need more people by the hundreds than they can actually hire. And so one thing that we did was we had every uh up-and-coming foreman develop a personal growth plan. So they were in charge of their own growth. What do you need to learn? What do you need to know? What are you curious about? Where would you like to be? And so just having them define that and then share that with their general foreman, it allowed us to see that, gosh, there was a lot more potential. And when people take initiative to champion their own growth as opposed to waiting for their leader uh to create growth for them or figure out, well, how do you need to grow? You know, often a lot of companies only do a performance review once a year, which I think is leaving a lot on the table. Now, a formal performance review, that's great for you know a salary increase, but there should be micro uh growth opportunities and check-ins all year because when you allow ownership of an individual to champion their own growth, to tell you what they'd like to learn, where they'd like to be in a year from now, it often increases this momentum. And when a whole team of people is doing it together and they help each other grow, there's your capacity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So people are much more engaged when they're a part of the building process. Absolutely. A part of the ideas. Yeah, if I say I'm gonna want to do something, then I probably want to do it more than if you tell me to do it. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02We have a way of if something's our own idea, we want to see it come to fruition.
SPEAKER_00How long did it take to work through with that business, that type of project? Uh sometimes I feel like owners have unrealistic expectations. They think they should be able to do something like that quickly.
SPEAKER_02It's still growing. I mean, honestly, it is still going. I growth and human capacity, when an organization takes off and is really investing in its people, it's never over. Just like self-awareness, you never graduate from the school of self-awareness. Uh, leadership is something you have to continue to stay on top of. And it's not like, you know, well, we push the button and everything's rolling and we can hands off. There's always people are dynamic creatures. We are always moving. We don't stay the same. So one day you might have a motivated employee. Three days later, they walk into work and you're like, what's wrong with you? You know, so it's something that, again, because that particular company continues to grow and take on more opportunities, it's the never-ending story. But the beauty is uh the foreman who have experienced their own growth are now in leveled up positions and they can multiply what they learned to those who are coming behind them. And so that's that's what you want to create, you know, a multiplying culture where people are empowered to lead and to motivate and to continue to grow those who come behind them.
SPEAKER_00That's really exciting. I'm sure you love to be like you get to sit in the front row and watch this happen in person.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely do. In fact, this morning I was in a coaching session with a leader who's, you know, in the two years I've been coaching her, she's had two promotions and To see just the growth and transformation that she was recognizing in herself today. You know, we just stopped and did a little reflection. And she was, you know, as leaders often are, overwhelmed by the problem of the day. And we just spent some time and I had her unpack to me where she's come from and the skill set she's used before to solve problems. And just this awareness of you're right. I have. That comes when you actually track your growth. So whether it's working with a coach or keeping a journal or just writing down milest milestones, there's something really special about that. And I do. I I find it such a joy and a privilege to be in the front seat of watching people transform and grow. Most days I'm like, I cannot believe I get to do this work.
SPEAKER_00I understand that a little bit. I feel the same way from the marketing end. When you get to partner with businesses and be a part of their growth, it's very rewarding. Absolutely. You really can't hardly even put words on it. A question that I have and my leadership team has had a lot is you know, you had mentioned change management. We are very aware of how we manage change and try to be very conscious. I'm not saying we always get it right, but rolling out changes in a way that's relevant. Um something we are looking for often is grace coming back towards us. And we have a struggle a little bit with communicating, um, I guess down like what do we need as leaders? What's the feedback that we need? But how what does that look like from a coaching perspective? How should leaders communicate to their team, hey, we're human too, we make mistakes, and then ask for that grace and and forgiveness? Are there any good practices to put in place?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, you know, one one of the things that is just a principle I I tend to see at work is as much as we want our team to give grace, being a leader and stepping into that role often means accepting the fact that there won't always be. And and just accepting it and bearing it and knowing that, you know, it is whenever I'm mediating team dynamics that where there's conflict, I always say whoever has the greater power has the greater responsibility to come, you know, if there's a tension between person A and person B, and person A has more positional power, and like you have to come a little farther than that individual because of the power dynamics. And so on one hand, yes, grace should be given, and on the other hand, I think it's a critical component for leadership, for leaders just to accept that it might not always be, and to learn how to lead even when there's not that grace or perspective. There are certain things, certain decisions that you can never share all the information, and so there's gonna be misperception, and the team's going to have to deal with, you know, what is. So I think building trust is critical, making sure that the team, both from a character and competence standpoint, they really trust who their leader is. That covers over a lot of things. The other part though that I think does accelerate people's willingness to give grace to their leader, is when their leaders show up humble, competent for sure. Like, hey, we got this, we're gonna lead it through. And at the same time, they're like, and I'm learning and I'm growing. When leaders learn how to apologize for their mistakes, when their leaders learn how to look at themselves in the mirror and say, you know what? I do this. And you guys are probably frustrated because of it. As opposed to, you know, when leaders don't own some of their tendencies that cause frustrations, annoyances, big or small, it's almost like asking the team to um disavow their sense of reality. Like they all know something. They feel like they're being gaslighted. Yeah, in a way. And I wouldn't necessarily that term has been so overused. That's true. But it's almost like, you know, if a leader, like for instance, I will tell you, and you've got to witness it, I am not the most punctual, I I'm not gonna be 10 minutes early kind of person because I get locked into the people I'm with. And as much as I've tried to overcome that particular tendency, it's gonna be something I'll probably struggle with for the rest of my life. Now, I know it, so I tried to be very um on top of it. However, if I was a leader who had that tendency, but I was always like disciplining my team if they were a couple of minutes late or this or that, that would be difficult for individuals to deal with because I wouldn't be looking in the mirror and saying, hey, this is something I struggle with too. And I still have that standard that everybody's on time, and yet I'm gonna offer some grace and perspective because it's a growth area. I find when leaders are very transparent with their team and they're able to say, I'm growing too, and here's how, and they are able to take ownership for some of the fallout. That truly was leaders create the culture. I always tell leaders, if you don't like the way your team's showing up or the products of your work, look in the mirror, start there first, figure out what tendencies, what uh maybe things you're overlooking are causing that in the system, and take some action there because what it does for everybody else, it gives them the freedom to not be perfect. It gives them the freedom to say, Oh, if Lindsay has to grow in that, you know what? I have to grow too. But what I often find in cultures where the leader is not uh overt in their areas of growth, it almost makes everybody feel like they're not allowed to have growth areas. They have to be perfect because that's what's gotten the leader to be successful. And so it's it's this uh hidden thing, I think, that goes under the surface.
SPEAKER_00Being a little bit more authentic and transparent about the things that you have experienced and where you can see your own shortcomings can help them feel comfortable with sharing even their own insights on themselves.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. It creates a degree of psychological safety, which research has shown us over and over and over. If you want to have high team performance, people need to show up as is. With their strengths, they need to be able to offer those strengths. Even and sometimes an individual team member might be better at something than the leader. They have to be able to offer that without judgment, competition, or you know, being penalized for it. They also have to be able to say, I don't know how to do this. And and that's often a barrier for teams success because if an individual has to mask behind confidence and pretend and then try to figure it out, um, it creates a lot of problems. We call that suffering and silence here.
SPEAKER_00There you go. Yes, do not suffer and silence. Do not want you to please let us help you. But we we understand we need to set the example for what that looks like as well. Sure. I I don't know that we always do a great job. You know, there's always room for growth. Right. It can feel a little scary to be transparent sometimes, but figuring out the right things to share and hey, this is the lesson that I'm learning right now. Can if that can help the team get better, then I'd love to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Well, I think you you do a great job from your reputation. Just as an outsider, uh, you seem to have a pretty uh healthy culture where people can show up and grow. And I think that's why you tracked all of the talent that you do.
SPEAKER_00We have a very young, fun, dynamic team. So it's great. In closing, is there a final thought or takeaway you would have for a business owner or a leader listening to this and saying, hey, I just implement one thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So we've danced around it a little bit, but you know, one of the frameworks and books that has changed my life is humble inquiry. Be a leader who's very comfortable asking questions that you don't have the answers to. Be curious, be willing to learn. Don't come into conversations with your team, with clients, with your neighbors, with preconceived notions and ideas. Just really put yourself in a humble posture and ask questions. The things that leaders learn when they're willing to do that is phenomenal. And it allows them to make decisions and to have real-time information that allows them then to find solutions that fit. And so, Humble Inquiry, one of my favorite books by Ed Gershein, he was a brilliant uh professor at MIT, but he he was one of the first people in the early 80s who combined psychology and business. And it's such a thing that we all take for granted now, but he was at the forefront of it. And so the foundation he laid really with self-awareness and that how that shows up and interpersonal relationships and business, it is really important and yet humble and crew was his approach. He's like, I want to be the dumbest person in the room and ask the questions nobody's asking so that I can get the insights that nobody's getting. And so, if I only had one thing, say, be really curious and listen very carefully to what's being said, you'll learn and you'll grow and you'll be better for it.
SPEAKER_00If somebody is listening and they want to maybe hire you, they think Susie sounds like an awesome coach, where would they go find more information about you?
SPEAKER_02So, of course, you can look at my website, uh personalpeaconsulting.com, but finding me on LinkedIn and just connecting, sending me a DM, like that is probably the fastest way if you want to connect, and then of course, we have a great phone call and uh see if it's a good fit.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for tuning in to Torch Talk. If today's story sparks something for you, share it with a colleague, community leader, or future change maker. Until next time, stay inspired, stay intentional, and keep your fire burning.